Scolytodes costabilis Wood, 1974

Jordal, Bjarte H. & Kirkendall, Lawrence R., 2019, Rainforest and cloud forest Scolytodes (Curculionidae, Scolytinae, Hexacolini) from the Arthropods of La Selva inventory in Costa Rica: new species, new synonymy, new records, ZooKeys 863, pp. 1-34 : 1

Scolytodes costabilis Wood, 1974

Scolytodes obesus Wood, 1975, new synonymy

New Costa Rica records.

San José, Zurquí de Moravia, 1600 m, 11 July 1997, L. R. Kirkendall, 4 cm dia. Cecropia insignis branch (14); Prov. Heredia, 16 km SSE La Virgen, 1050-1150 m, 10°16'N, 84°05'W, 20 Feb. 2001, INBio-OET-ALAS transect, 11/TN/19/009, INB0003210610 (1); Heredia, Est. Biol. La Selva, 50-150 m, 10°26'N, 84°01'W, 15 May 2000, FOT/50/34, fogging Goethalsia meiantha , INBIOCRI002731022 (1); [Puntarenas] La Gamba, Piedras Blancas NP, Esquinas rainforest, 18-28 May 2006, 8°42'/-83°12', 90-200 m, leg. Erwin Holzer (1).

Scolytodes obesus was described from a single teneral specimen from the Canal Zone in Panama ( Wood 1975). This specimen is slightly stouter than the holotype of S. costabilis (2.1 vs. 2.3 × as long as wide), and the declivity of the elytra is slightly more gradual. Slight variation observed among populations and even within series of the new collections argue for there being just a single species.

Scolytodes costabilis is recorded for the second time from Costa Rica (see Jordal 2018), from three additional localities. With the four records reported here, this species is regarded as broadly distributed, ranging from Veracruz, Mexico (holotype of S. costabilis ) to central Panama, from near sea level to cloud forest.

New country records for Hexacolini

Six species of Scolytodes and one of the related genus Pycnarthrum were recorded from Costa Rica for the first time (Table 1).

Scolytodes clusiacolens Wood was previously known from Mexico and Honduras. The collection of this large species comprises three pairs just starting galleries in 8-10 mm thick Clusia branches.

Scolytodes crinalis Wood, 1978, another Clusia -associated species, was previously known only from Venezuela. It was collected in two different traps.

Scolytodes libidus Wood, 1978, another Venezuelan species, was collected by traps and from leaf litter samples from several Costa Rican localities.

Scolytodes reticulatus Wood, 1961 was originally recorded from Ficus in Mexico and the Costa Rica collection from a fallen Ficus jimenezii tree suggests it might be widely distributed fig tree specialist.

Scolytodes culcitatus (Blandford), was known only from the holotype collected in Panama, despite being one of the three first described species in the genus (Blandford 1897). This distinctive species is unique in the genus in for having a large patch of dense long setae on the anterolateral area of the pronotum, obscuring a large impression there. The impression with long setae is likely to be a repository for fungal spores, but nothing is known of the biology of this elusive species.

Scolytodes spadix (Blackman, 1943) seems to be common in Costa Rica based on the multiple collections reported here, though all are from the Caribbean side of Costa Rica; it was previously known from a single specimen taken from a mahogany log thought to have originated in Guatemala. The two host records reported here are from unrelated tree species in the families Meliaceae and Urticaceae .

Pycnarthrum fulgidum Wood, 1977 was known only from the original series collected from a broken log of Guarea ( Meliaceae ) in lowland Colombia. The new record for Costa Rica is based on a male found in a Malaise trap collection in secondary forest at La Selva Biological Station.